Senate votes to terminate Trump's national emergency declaration at the Southern border

by JAMES ROSEN, Sinclair Broadcast Group

Thursday, March 14th 2019

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WASHINGTON (SBG) - There is “A lot of this is drama,” a leading Republican senator declared ahead of today’s vote to overturn President Trump’s emergency declaration at the Southern border.

The vote on the resolution, which passed 59 to 41, saw 12 GOP lawmakers in the Republican-controlled chamber break ranks with the White House.

The intricate politics of immigration in the Trump era played out in curious fashion on the Senate floor, where even some Republicans who favor the building of additional wall at the border, such as Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, voted to support the Democrat-sponsored resolution, arguing that the president’s objective could be attained without need for his invocation of emergency powers.

Democrats hewed to more familiar terrain, castigating the declaration as a “presidential power grab” in service of an illusory emergency at the border.

President Trump responded to the vote with a one-word tweet reading: VETO! When the resolution is delivered to the president’s desk and he exercises that presidential authority, it will be the first of his tenure in the White House and intensify the most pointed clash yet between his White House and the Congress. Sinclair investigative reporter James Rosen has more on where this still-unfolding drama is headed next.